Bigfoot, Wendigo and UFOs: Three forms of projection

Editor's Note:This is Part 3 of a 3-part series. To read parts 1 and 2, please go here Part 1 and here: Part 2

For centuries a bizarre creature has been sighted in the northern Minnesota woods, including at least four documented close encounters by the first white settlers between about 1890 and 1920.

The Wendigo would seem a creature borne out of Native American myth, but as we have suggested in Part 1 and 2 of this series, there is at least a plausible model to show that the Wendigo may be something that is real.

One model is the Flat Universe scenario as predicted by mathematicians and cosmologists. If our Universe is truly flat as good scientific evidence suggests, it adds leverage to the frequent reports by individuals that the Wendigo appears as an entity projected onto a flat screen.

Second, former top “psychic spies” from the CIA’s once secret Remote Viewing program say they have “seen evidence” that bizarre sightings of cryptics, such as Bigfoot, are “being projected” as a kind of “solid image” onto the surface of the earth from a far-off location in outer space.

Perhaps few readers will be able to cram such outlandish explanation for the Wendigo into their belief systems. They prefer the old standard explanations: Hoaxes, wild imaginations, known animals mistaken for monsters, and just plain stupidity, drunkenness or hallucinations. Skeptics return again and again to the obvious factors which suggest these things simply cannot be real: No dead body ever found, no body parts, no DNA, no poop, and no fossils have ever been recovered.

Yet, there’s a problem: They’re h-e-e-e-e-r-e!

Sightings and encounters of crypto-creatures remain enormously persistent and widespread. Those who claim to have seen them by and large have nothing to gain – and very often a lot to lose – from reporting a Bigfoot or Wendigo.

So why do they do it? What are they seeing? Is it the famous "mass hysteria," or perhaps an irresistible meme that people simply love to keep alive in the public consciousness – but if that is so, why this particular meme?

THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS?

Another suggestion by one of the most brilliant minds of the previous century is that all of this can be explained by still another form of projection – but a very different kind of projection from those discussed in Part 1 and 2.

It was the great Swiss psychologist Carl Jung who offered a kind of psychological projection process to explain the the vexing persistence of the UFO and other strange phenomenon, such as sightings of Bigfoot and Wendigo.

Jung said that because UFO sightings were so widespread, so universal—across cultures and national boundaries –it would be wrong to dismiss them as mere bouts of wild imagination and hysteria. Rather, Jung said the UFO was an integral universal archetype embedded in the collective consciousness of the entire human race.

To make a complex theory simple: Jung argued that in modern society the old traditions, myths and religions are rapidly being broken down, but at the same time, the human mind has an innate need for myth. Thus, Jung said, as humanity loses its faith in gods, saints and angels, it is essential for people to grasp at other elements of mythological awareness – and this is what is manifesting itself as the UFO phenomenon.

The same theory could be applied to the sightings of cryptids, such as the Wendigo and Bigfoot. Such creatures also carry with them a powerful archetypical punch – they seem to be a bridge or connection with an ancient aspect of our Selves – primitive man, man as beast, pre-civilized man still at one with nature and an equal member of nature – not separated by superiority-- enfolded in brotherhood with Earth's amazing array of animal life.

In effect, Jung’s suggestion is a kind of compromise between believers and skeptics. He says the paranormal phenomenon undeniable experienced by millions simply cannot be dismissed as something that is unreal.

On the other hand, he relegates the phenomenon to the realm of mind – but to an important, embedded and even biological component of mind. Thus, apparitions like Bigfoot, the Wendigo and UFOs represent a special kind of reality – one that is integral to the most deeply fundamental nature of the human race.

Is Jung’s theory sound? Well, there are many problems, not the least of which is that Bigfoot and Wendigo’s have been sighted for centuries (this is also true of UFOs) – even during those eras when humanity embraced religion as the central method of making sense of reality and the universe.

Jung’s proposition requires the disintegration of modern cultural belief structures or there to be phenomenon such as UFOs – the problem is, they have always been here.

Carl Jung was definitely onto something, and his view should not be dismissed entirely. Jung seemed to intuitively realize that something much deeper and much bigger was happening in light of millions of people persistently encountering unexplained phenomenon.

But this is where we jump out of our discussion of the Wendigo – digging deeper into other cosmological models – (such as the growing popularity of the Virtual Reality Universe model, as championed by NASA physicist Tom Campbell) and other attributes of consciousness are beyond the scope of this series.

For more stories of paranormal strangeness in Minnesota, see Ken Korczak's full-length book:

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Ken Korczak graduated from Winona State University with a degree in journalism in 1984. He has reported for three newspapers, taught writing at the University of North Dakota, and freelanced successfully for 20 years. You may contact Ken with your comments and questions.